Catharsis
by underthestreetlights
Summary: You see her walking to you in white, you see her lying next to you as the light dances across her skin, you feel your hands mapping out her body like she's a treasure island. But they're just snapshots fading fast; ephemeral, transient, fleeting. And you raise your hand for another drink. A Modern AU.


Note: This can be read either as a modernised Austen, or an LBD AU because I like how LBD modernised the characters of Pride and Prejudice, but this story does not strictly follow that plot and it makes sense in both readings. Also it's inspired by _Sometime Around Midnight_ by The Airborne Toxic Event. This fic will possibly be better if you go listen to it. So, like, please do if you can.

Disclaimer: I don't own Pride and Prejudice or the Lizzie Bennet Diaries.

Rating: T for mild coarse language and somewhat suggestive themes. Somewhat.

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><p><strong>Catharsis<strong>

And so there's a change… In your emotions...

And all of these memories come rushing like feral waves to your mind,

Of the curl of your bodies, like two perfect circles entwined,

And you feel hopeless, and homeless, and lost in the haze of the wine

_Sometime Around Midnight_ The Airborne Toxic Event

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><p><em>And it starts…<em>

_... sometime around midnight. _

You're standing with a shoulder pressed against the wall of the bar, the thumping music doing nothing much to soothe the headache that's been pulsing through your temple all afternoon. The board meetings, your Aunt Catherine's nagging, Caroline Lee's insistent attentions, and of course, that other thing, they pull at your skin until it feels like all your breaths are being forced out of your pores. And there's not enough air left in this world for you to breathe.

But it's okay. You'll get past this. You have to. Not just for yourself, but for Gigi too. The last time you disappeared on her, well, the consequences of that are something you never want her to feel again.

The music transitions into a melancholy piano melody and it reminds you of her smile. And not for the first time, nor for the last you imagine, you wish you had never met her, but you don't really mean it. And not for the first time tonight you wonder why you agreed to coming here in the first place; you're still painfully sober and it's best if you remain that way; you don't know what will happen with the swirl of emotions in you right now.

Bing and Fitz are worried about you, they say. The eighty hour work weeks, the twelve hour days - it's not healthy. It's probably even less healthy to get you blind drunk so you can forget, you try to argue, but you give in anyway. You're not sure why. You're okay though. It's gotten to the point when everything starts to blur and your emotions begin to numb like a layer of ice forming around things left alone too long in the freezer.

But then you see her walk in like a specter in that white dress (_you haven't seen her for a while)_ so you raise your glass to your lips.

There's something cathartic about the burning trail down your throat the first wave of liquor brings. But of course you're not the first person to discover this small fact. There's a reason it has been and continues to be such a prominent cause of human decay for so long. You can feel it purging you, cell by cell, you can feel it destroying you, inch by inch, vein by vein.

You're staring at her again, like she's a traffic accident and you _just can't look away._ She's dancing with some man you don't recognize; she's laughing and spinning and her hair is flaming out around her.

_If I never see that sociopathic robot again, it will be too soon._

But that's the thing, isn't it. You're not a robot - you never were. It's the opposite, really. You've always felt too much, too strongly and so you bottle it all up and you toss it all away so you can't get hurt anymore. Guess that worked out well, didn't it.

Then she walks up, apologetic written across her face. And you're not nearly drunk enough for this.

Hi Darcy, she says, quieter than you've ever heard her be. You look everywhere but at her eyes.

_I've been thinking about the pleasure a pair of fine eyes in the face of a pretty woman can bestow._

Lizzie, you say, or at least you think you do.

How are you?

I'm fine. Thank you.

And at this point you can smell her perfume, vanilla and raspberries and tea and these memories are like _feral waves_ in your mind; a tsunami comes crashing down on you.

_Two parts of me have been at war._

(_I am in love with you.)_

_The last man in the word I could ever fall in love with._

Thank you, she says, for the letter. It was… illuminating. And I'm sorry. For those things I said.

_I'm_ sorry, is what you want to say. I fucked up. I'm sorry for Jane and Bing and for not dancing with you and for ever calling you _decent enough_. I'm sorry for ever causing you pain and insulting your family and being so so selfish. I was blind and blinded and I fucked up.

, is what you actually say.

Okay, well, I thought I'd just let you know, I guess. See you around, Darcy. She smiles, eyes dark and lovely before she slips into the crowd, gone before you can try say another word.

Then you remember the future as if it's played out in your past. You see snapshots of her and you, the circle of your bodies; her lying naked in your arms. You see your happiness reflected in her dark eyes, your pulse echoing hers, you're mirrors of each other; a mirror of a mirror. You see her walking to you in white, you see her lying next to you as the light dances across her skin, you feel your hands mapping out her body like she's a treasure island.

But they're just snapshots fading fast; ephemeral, transient, fleeting. And you raise your hand for another drink. And maybe another. You feel yourself becoming _lost in the haze of the wine_. It's liberating and constricting all at the same time and you remember how being in love with her terrified you to no end. But you never imagined, did you, not for a second that she might not love you back.

_Are you rejecting me?_

_(Does that surprise you?)_

_May I ask why?_

You were so goddamn confident and in the end you had nothing left.

Bing and Jane are slow dancing to the band playing some song about forgetting yourself for a while. Fitz and his boyfriend dance so outrageously they've managed to clear a circumference around themselves on the floor. The bartender looks like he's about to cut you off, so you stand to look for her in the echo of people dancing under the pulsing bar lights, because you _just have to tell her. _

I'm sorry. I love you. Please give me another chance. I don't want to live a life without you in it. It's a colorless existence in the most clichéd sense. And I. Fucked. Up.

(But of course, it's far too late for any of that now.)

Then you sees her, standing by the doorway, clutching her bag, eyes locking onto yours and you make your way over to her. But then she leaves with someone unfamiliar to you and you stumble backwards only to knock into Bing.

"Darcy," he says, "hey, are you all right?"

_You look like you've seen a ghost._

_(Are you all right?)_

_(No, I'm not, actually.)_

_(This is the worst possible time you could be doing this.)_

Remember that feeling you had earlier? The perpetual struggle to breathe? Well, somehow this feels worse. You burst out of the bar, the sudden silence a blatant juxtaposition to the thoughts circling in your head. Then a car sweeps past and you remember where you are.

_You're too drunk to notice that everyone's staring at you._

People stare as you stumble underneath the streetlights. Will Darcy: the snobby hipster sociopathic executive douche. If only they could see you now.

Finding your car is out of the question. You're sober enough to remember Fitz taking your keys from you after your second or third drink; you're not sober enough to be trusted behind the wheel.

You take out your phone and even though you know it's a fucking terrible idea you call her anyway. And it rings and it rings and it rings and it rin-

_Hi, this is Elizabeth Bennet. Please leave a message after the tone._

But you have to see her, _you just have to see her_.

You can see it now.

_(You just have to see her.)_

You knock on her door and before you can stop yourself you kiss her.

_(You just have to see her.)_

She tries to pull away but you don't let her. You kiss her until she kisses you back, pressing her small frame into yours. _Elizabeth,_ you say and you slam your hands on either side of her; the door crashes shut as she pulls on your tie, down down down. And then you can breathe again, you can feel the air coursing through your veins, you can feel her breathing a pulse into your lungs. You needed to know how that would feel; you needed her to make you feel. It's utterly selfish, you know. But she is your catharsis.

_(You just have to see her.)_

Then you reach her door. She holds all the power in her hands now. She could destroy you, completely obliterate you, and you know that she will.

_(You just have to see her.)_

And you raise your hand to knock.

_You know that she'll break you in two._

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><p>Reviews and feedback would be very much appreciated.<p> 


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